Boss opened his eyes and looked down, four feet below him a patch of grass and roots spun left to right. He looked up and saw the parachute silk snagged in the branches the tree he was hanging from.

“Oh. Cool. Hanging from a tree in my ‘chute, what a cliché”

He looked down again and twisted the harness lock on his chest. It was slick with blood and hard to get a grip on. It clicked and he smacked it with the palm of his hand, dropped out of the webbing and down to the forest floor.

Pain shot through him as the ends of broken ribs and other snaps grated against each other as he collapsed into a ball on his side.

“Fuck! Stop, box it away – stay conscious, stay awake!” he thought through red waves of agony.

The roaring in his ear eased a little as he strained to hear the noise that had woken him from his dangling dreams. An auto engine, coming close – through blurred eyes he sought to get some fix on the source. He could make out the tree line fifty feet away to the west and coming across the grass towards this was a jeep, silhouetted against the low sun.

Boss had no idea how far he may of drifted, the engagement was close to the border and he had to deploy his chute early, could be on either side. God it hurt. “Get up. Need to move” he growled at himself.

Figures had jumped out of the jeep and were coming towards him. He could hear voices shouting. He fumbled for his pistol with numb hands. Nothing seemed to be working, it took both hands to pull the gun out of its holster and it felt like it weighed more than he did.

Boss rolled onto his knees and tried to get upright, focusing on the approaching figures, he held the gun in shaking hands in front of him and tried to see what they were, Monkeys or Rabbits.

“No fucking Monkey is coming near me!”

The gun waved left and right, its weight sending fresh waves of pain stabbing into Boss from all angles.

“No, Monkey, bastard is…”

Boss fell face down onto the ground and lay still.

The two figures from the jeep stood over Boss, one of them dug a radio out of its jacket.

“Control, we got him. Send a medivac chopper now! He looks bad.”

Boss looked at the drink in his hand. The glass was a heavy crystal tumbler, an inch of amber liquid swirling in it. He looked down at the front of his flight suit. There was a lot of blood on it. Hmmm. Not good probably. For some reason that didn’t seem important right now. The drink did.

Boss raised the glass to his nose and sniffed – nothing surprisingly, so cautiously he took a sip.

“Oh my god!”

It tasted of, well – everything! Of summer and fruit and meat and hops and sea air and chocolate and sunlight and snow and earth and wind and….everything ever. And it tasted so good!

He looked up. He was in a bar. He had a slightly uneasy feeling he recognised it but he had never seen it from this angle. It was also very quiet.

The other customers seemed to be rabbits like himself, all wearing flight suits, sitting at tables but for some reason, or by some trick of coincidence they all had their backs to him as they sat and chatted soundlessly.

The walls of this bar were covered in pictures of aircraft and smiling people, small parts of planes and various squadron insignias. Directly opposite where boss sat was a door.

This did not look like your average bar door, it was big and made of dark oak. Its surface was studded with big metal nail heads and there appeared to be no handle on this side of it. Which worried Boss somewhat. Where was he?

He got up and walked through the tables and up to the door. He pushed but it felt solidly locked. What the hell is going on? He took another drink and turned round.

From this angle, from just inside the door, he recognised the bar for what it was – the place where he came in his nightmares night after night, to watch his fellow pilots burn and scream and feel helpless. They all sat now looking at him from the tables expectantly.

One of the pilots got up and walked up to Boss, smiling as he did so.

“Your not actually supposed to be here boss, not yet”

Boss frowned. “Your, Tyco right? From Gold section – we lost you last month…”

“Never mind that, time for you to go” And saying this Tyco took bosses drink from him and reached over his shoulder to push the door open

“But it’s locked…”

Boss felt wind on his back and saw his shadow cast across the bar, and felt Tyco gently pushing him back over the threshold

“No it’s not. You just don’t know how to work it yet. Don’t come back soon Boss OK? You’re not finished yet. They need you”

Boss stepped backwards and felt the step under his foot and suddenly everything went white and he was falling fast, dropping through bright white clouds in the company of falling lumps of burning metal.